Wednesday 12 October 2005 19.04 EDT
First published on Wednesday 12 October 2005 19.04 EDT

Syria's interior minister, General Ghazi Kanaan, was found dead in Damascus yesterday. He had been questioned by the UN about the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, and the investigation report is due out within days.

In a two-sentence statement, the official Syrian news agency said Gen Kanaan had committed suicide in his office, but some prominent anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon said immediately they doubted this account. Hours before he died, the general, aged 63, contacted a Lebanese radio station. He acknowledged he had been questioned by UN investigators, but said he had given no information against the Syrian state. He ended his on-air comments by saying: "I believe this is the last statement that I can make."

The death is a sign of the immense pressure faced by Damascus ahead of the UN report into the murder on February 14 of Rafiq Hariri, 60; the millionaire had resigned as prime minister of Lebanon in October. Syria denied any role and condemned the assassination, but Mr Hariri had fallen out with Damascus. Huge street protests in Beirut in the weeks afterward forced Syria to pull out troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year occupation.

Then a German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, began an unprecedented UN investigation into the the huge car bomb assassination, which killed nine other people and left a crater 30ft deep. Already, four Lebanese security generals who had close Syrian links are in jail.

Several senior Syrians, including Gen Kanaan, have been questioned by the UN team. UN sources have suggested the team's report will be hard-hitting, accusing the Syrian government of involvement in Mr Hariri's murder.

Gen Kanaan was a long-time pillar of the Ba'ath regime in Damascus. For 20 years he was the military intelligence chief for Lebanon, running it as a de facto client state until 2002, when he returned to Damascus and was briefly head of the political security directorate before becoming interior minister. In June, Gen Kanaan and his replacement, Gen Rustum Ghazali, another official questioned by the UN, had their US assets frozen by Washington. The US said it had information that while in Lebanon Gen Kanaan had been heavily involved in corruption and in supplying arms to Hizbullah, Lebanon's Shia resistance movement now turned political party, and that he had extensive influence over the Lebanese military and the political process.

"It is a big shock. It brings forward a million more questions than it answers," said Sami Moubayed, a political analyst and writer in Damascus, of the death of the general. "He was regarded as a very strong man, a very smart officer. Because he had been so long in Lebanon he had learnt to deal with things in a moderate way; but he was also someone who wanted things done his way. He was between the moderates and the hardliners, more of a politician than an officer." Mr Moubayed said the Syrian government was prepared to cooperate with the UN investigators, and felt confident it would survive the inquiry intact.

Gen Kanaan's body was taken to al-Shami hospital in Damascus yesterday, where there was a significant police presence but no sign of demonstrations.

Gebran Tueni, a prominent Lebanese journalist and MP who regularly criticised the occupation, said he doubted Gen Kanaan had taken his life. A similar claim was made five years ago when Mahmoud Zoubi, a former Syrian prime minister, was found dead while under investigation for corruption. Most Syrians believed Mr Zoubi was killed. Mr Tueni, who is in Paris because of attacks on critics of Syria in Beirut, said he had information that Gen Kanaan had not died in his office, as the government had claimed.

"I don't think Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide. We know there have been a lot of cases like this in the past in Damascus," he said. "He was somebody who knew a lot about who was involved in that totalitarian regime." He thought Gen Kanaan was reluctant to be put forward as a scapegoat for the Hariri murder. "Maybe they were afraid that Ghazi Kanaan would give up information about the way the Syrian regime was dealing with the Lebanese."

Gen Kanaan was not a member of the immediate circle around President Bashir al-Assad. He was known to have close links with the former vice president, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, sacked over the summer. Some believe the pair may have represented a rival powerbase within the Ba'ath party that could have challenged Mr Assad in future. "The Mehlis report will bring a lot of changes to the Syrian regime," Mr Tueni said. "They should know there is no more room in the Middle East for a totalitarian regime."

Before his chilling apparent farewell, Gen Kanaan told Voice of Lebanon radio: "My testimony ... was to shed the light on an era during which we have served Lebanon. Sadly some media outlets have reported lies to mislead public opinion.

"I want to make clear that our relation with our brothers in Lebanon was based on love and mutual respect ... We have served Lebanon's interest with honour and honesty."